Batu made the route every morning before the horse lines had run their first allocation. He started at the south gate and went east, following the perimeter at two hundred and fifty meters from the wall, watching the city's condition from what the south and east walls showed him.
The ride took about an hour, and he hadn't skipped it once.
The south gate was the most changed. The original timber above it had burned as the fire projectors had hit it repeatedly, and whatever the garrison tried to patch with, the projectors found that too.
What the gate looked like now was a section of wall where the palisade posts were shorter and lighter-colored than the logs on each side, new timber set over burned timber, and even some of those patches showed their own char now.
Chaidu came alongside him near the eastern section. "Report about the north tower,"
He read it aloud. "When we started it had eight men on it most of the time. It's got four now, maybe five."
